Thursday, February 26, 2015

A recently discovered stellar neighbour of the Sun penetrated the
extreme fringes of the Solar System—the closest encounter ever
documented—at around the time that modern humans began spreading from
Africa into Eurasia.

The red dwarf star, which has a mass about 8% that of the Sun and is
orbited by a 'brown dwarf' companion—a body with too little heft to
sustain the thermonuclear reactions that enable stars to shine—was
discovered in 2013 in images recorded by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared
Survey Explorer (WISE) mission. It is relatively nearby, at about 6
parsecs (19.6 light years) away.

Astronomer Eric Mamajek at the University of Rochester in New York
became intrigued by it when he learned that the faint object is moving
slowly across the sky, but its radial velocity—the rate at which it is
moving away from an observer—is high. That indicated that the low-mass
star, nicknamed Scholz’s star after the German astronomer who discovered
it, is racing almost directly away from the Solar System.

Tracing the trajectory of the star and its brown dwarf companion back in
time, Mamajek’s team found with 98% confidence that Scholz’s star
passed within the Solar System's Oort cloud, a reservoir of comets,
about 70,000 years ago.

Monday, February 23, 2015

Replica of the black-and-white television camera which showedthe first astronauts walking on the Moon (the original cameraremains on the Moon). This replica is in the collection of theNational Air and Space Museum, Smithsonian Institution.Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of PopularScience also publicly displayed a non-working replica of thisWestinghouse television camera for many years.

By Glenn A. WalshReporting for SpaceWatchtower

Physicist Ernest Sternglass, who was
instrumental in development of the television camera which showed the
first astronauts walking on the Moon, has died at age 91 of heart
failure. The Cornell University graduate, who worked for many years
at the Westinghouse Research Laboratory, and later at the University
of Pittsburgh, passed-away on February 12 in Ithaca, New York. His
death was announced by Cornell University, where Dr. Sternglass'
professional papers are archived.

For the first Moon landing by
astronauts, NASA planned to provide the national and world television
networks a live television feed showing the astronauts walking around
and working on the Moon. However, NASA was concerned with the
television picture quality, considering that there would be no
artificial lighting available to help illuminate the lunar environment.

Dr. Sternglass' research led to the
development of a very sensitive television camera tube, which could
capture low-light action on the Moon. The genesis of this research
came in 1950, while Mr. Sternglass was a graduate student, with
correspondence he had with famous physicist Albert Einstein. This led to an electron
amplification discovery that later permitted the development of a
very sensitive television camera, first for spy satellites, and later
for NASA's Moon mission. This black-and-white television camera was
developed for NASA while he was employed at the Westinghouse Research
Laboratory in east suburban Pittsburgh.

With one of the largest television
audiences in history (estimated to be at least 600 million,
worldwide), this television camera showed the first person to step on
the Moon, Neil Armstrong, first setting-foot on the Moon on Sunday
Evening, 1969 July 20 at precisely 10:56:20 p.m. Eastern Daylight
Saving Time (EDT) / July 21 (“Moonday”) at 2:56:20 Coordinated
Universal Time (UTC).

Ernest Sternglass was born on 1923
September 24 in Germany, but his family fled Nazi Germany in 1938 and
came to America. After completing high school at the age of 16, he
entered an engineering program at Cornell University. He volunteered
to serve in the U.S. Navy during World War II, but just before
leaving for the Pacific Theater the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and
Nagasaki ended the war.

His first civilian job, in 1947 at the
Naval Ordinance Laboratory in Washington, led to a meeting with
Albert Einstein at Dr. Einstein's home in Princeton, New Jersey. Dr.
Sternglass went on to earn his Master's Degree and Ph.D. in applied
and engineering physics at Cornell University.

He was among several scientists
concerned with the health effects of the atmospheric testing of
nuclear weapons. On the last day of the 1963 U.S. Senate Atmospheric
Test Ban Treaty hearings, he testified that radiation from bomb tests
were equivalent to human exposure to several X-rays. A few years
earlier, he had observed that medical X-ray exposure to a developing
fetus correlated with a significant increase in incidence of
childhood leukemia and infant mortality.

In later years, Dr. Sternglass worked
at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine where he conducted
pioneering work in digital X-ray imaging.

A non-working replica of the historic
Apollo 11 television camera was publicly displayed for many years at
Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular
Science. During the 1970s and early 1980s, this replica was shown in
a classic display-case exhibit in the Great Hall on Buhl
Planetarium's first-floor. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, this Westinghouse
camera replica was displayed behind the large glass windows in Buhl
Planetarium's third-floor Astronomical Observatory.

James J. Mullaney, who would later become Curator of Exhibits and Astronomy at Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science, helped develop this camera, known as a SEC (Secondary Electron Conduction) Video Tube, while he was a technician at the Westinghouse Research and Development Labs in the mid-1960s. This SEC Vindicon was tested on the historic 30-inch Thaw Memorial Refractor Telescope, with the original 30-inch John Brashear objective lens (a newer lens was installed in the 1980s), at Pittsburgh's Allegheny Observatory.

Early Tuesday morning, a bright fireball
was observed by many people in the Pittsburgh area, and throughout
much of Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, and New York. One of
the largest such meteors observed since the Chelyabinsk, Russia
meteor almost exactly two years earlier, fortunately in this case
there has been no damage on the ground reported.

Friends of the Zeiss received an
eye-witness report from a woman in the Pittsburgh suburb of Fox
Chapel, who reported, “Gazing out my window, there was a blazing,
streaking, yellow orange light heading N. to slightly N.E. It
had a slightly wide & long "tail" & was bright
enough to light my room as though it was a searchlight.” She
also noted “the sound of a distant boom” two minutes after seeing
the meteor.

The American Meteor Society, which
collects fireball and meteor reports from the general public,
received 125 eye-witness reports about the event that occurred around
4:50 a.m. Eastern Standard Time (EST) / 9:50 Coordinated Universal
Time (UTC) on February 17. Three witnesses in the Pittsburgh area
also reported hearing a delayed boom after seeing the fireball.

Images and video of the meteor were
caught by three NASA cameras, including one on the roof of
Pittsburgh's Allegheny Observatory. These are part of NASA's All-Sky
Fireball Network, currently a network of 15 specialized,
black-and-white video cameras, with lenses that allow for a view of
the whole night sky overhead.

NASA estimates that the meteoroid, at
the point it entered Earth's atmosphere, probably weighed about 500
pounds and was traveling about 45,000 miles per hour. Even though the
dense space rock was only about two feet in diameter, after entering
the atmosphere it flared-up brighter than a Full Moon. NASA also
noted that, from the meteor's apparent orbit, it probably originated
in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

Yesterday, in an interview with
Pittsburgh's KDKA-TV 2, Dr. Brendan Mullan, Director of the Henry
Buhl, Jr. Planetarium and Observatory at Pittsburgh's Carnegie
Science Center, mentioned that if remnants of the meteor reached the
ground, they may have fallen near Kittanning, Pennsylvania (44 miles
northeast of Pittsburgh). The American Meteor Society estimates, from
witness reports, that the fireball trajectory did take it over
Clarion County and northern Armstrong County in Western Pennsylvania.

It is estimated that only 10 percent of a large meteor, or in this case about 50 pounds of meteoric material, could have, potentially, reached the ground. The rest of the meteor would have been lost to the light and heat that created the fireball. Most small meteors are completely vaporized in the atmosphere. The fact that this meteor was large enough to create a sonic boom means there is a possibility that some meteoric material may have reached the ground.

With snowfalls since the fireball
observation possibly covering any such remnants, meteorites from this
meteor may not be found until Spring, at the earliest. And, even
after the snow is gone, finding a remnant from this meteor could be
quite difficult.

1938 Fireball Explosion Over W PA Remembered (2013 March 11):

Special Thanks: Eric G. Canali, former Floor Manager of Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of Popular Science and Founder of the South Hills Backyard Astronomers amateur astronomy club.

Source: Glenn A. Walsh Reporting for
SpaceWatchtower, a project of Friends of the Zeiss.

Wednesday, February 18, 2015

The Earth's Moon has been given many
names over the many millenia men and women have been looking at our
planet's only major natural satellite. In addition to the many names
given to the Full Moon for each month, by Native Americans, in more
recent times “Blue Moon” and “Super Moon” have joined the
lexicon.

Now the “Black Moon” joins the
list. And, at the moment of the posting of this blog post, 6:47 p.m.
Eastern Standard Time (EST) / 23:47 Coordinated Universal Time (UTC)
on Wednesday Evening, 2015 February 18, we observe the most recent
“Black Moon.”

As with the so-called “Blue Moon,”
the “Black Moon” has more than one definition. The definition to
describe today's “Black Moon” is the third New Moon phase in a calendar
season which includes four New Moons. This is similar to the one
definition of a “Blue Moon”: the third Full Moon phase in a calendar
season with four Full Moons. And, of course, a “Black Moon” is
described as black because this is the time the near side of the Moon (the only side of the Moon that can ever be viewed directly from the Earth) is
not illuminated by the Sun.

As most calendar seasons have three
Full Moons, most calendar seasons also have three New Moons. However,
by an occasional quirk in the calendar, this year Winter has four New
Moons. A fourth New Moon occurs this Winter on March 20, just about
13 hours before the Vernal Equinox, the official beginning of the
season of Spring!

As with the terms "Blue Moon" and "Super Moon," the term "Black Moon" is not an official designation and has no real astronomical significance.

Other definitions used for a “Black Moon”:

A month missing a New Moon or a
month missing a Full Moon (in both cases, this can only happen in
February).

The second New Moon in a month
with two New Moons (which can only happen in any month except
February).

2015 February 18 is also significant
for these reasons:

As the Chinese use a lunisolar
calendar, today's New Moon marks Chinese New Year.

In the Christian calendar, today
marks Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent, 46 days before Easter
Sunday.

Today marks the 85th
anniversary of the discovery of the Planet Pluto, now designated
Dwarf Planet 134340 Pluto, by Clyde Tombaugh at Lowell Observatory
near Flagstaff, Arizona.

Tuesday, February 17, 2015

These images of the plume were taken by amateur astronomers Wayne Jaeschke, a patent attorney based in
West Chester, PA, and D. Parker.In March and April of 2012, amateur astronomers with their lenses turned
toward Mars saw strange plumes bubble out from the normally
round-appearing atmosphere of the Red Planet. The plumes lasted for
around 10 days."Remarkably, the aspect of the features changed rapidly,
their shapes going from double-blob protrusions to pillars or
finger-plumelike morphologies," says a paper just published in the journal Nature
by a team of professional researchers who back up the amateurs'
findings. The paper also pretty much says that the researchers have no
idea what caused the plumes.They do have two theories, however.The first is that the plumes were caused by phenomena similar to our aurora borealis. The second idea is that the plumes were actually high-flying clouds.More - Link >>> http://www.cnet.com/news/strange-double-blob-atop-martian-atmosphere-puzzles-scientists/

Sunday, February 15, 2015

Four new guides to educational degree
programs regarding Computer Science and related subjects, available free-of-charge to the general public on the Internet, have just been created by an
organization called Computer Science Online. These four new guides
join six other guides that have already been available to the public,
by the non-profit organization.

According to the
ComputerScienceOnline.org web site:

“ComputerScienceOnline.org is an
in-depth website for potential and current students considering a
career with computers, software engineering, and more. Our staff is
passionate about technology and dedicated to helping others find the
information they need to make decisions about their future in the
fast moving and rapidly growing tech industry.'

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

James E. Keeler, one of the early Directors of LickObservatory, had previously been Director of Pittsburgh'sAllegheny Observatory. (Image Source: Wikipedia.org )

By Robert Patrick Van Tooke

The University of California’s Lick Observatory has received $1 million as a gift from Google.

$500,000 of the funds have already been funneled into the
observatory’s general expenses, with another $500,000 to be donated this
year — on top of the annual $1.5 million provided by the UC Office of
the President, according to UC Berkeley astronomy professor Alex
Filippenko.

“Lick Observatory has been making important discoveries while
training generations of scientists for more than 100 years,” said Chris
DiBona, director of open source and scientific outreach for Google, in
an email. “Google is proud to support their efforts in 2015 to bring
hands-on astronomical experiences to students and the public.”

In September 2013, the university announced a controversial decision to withdraw its funds from the observatory,
with plans to refer the resources to newer facilities such as the
Thirty Meter Telescope. The university revoked its decision in November
of last year, however, mitigating concerns that the observatory would
have to transition into self-support, with help from private donors.

Prospects were looking bright Friday (Feb. 6) at the Department of Energy’s
(DOE’s) Brookhaven National Laboratory in Upton, New York. Secretary of
Energy Ernest Moniz dedicated the lab’s new $912 million National Synchrotron Light Source II
(NSLS-II), which will be the brightest synchrotron light source in the
United States and—within a certain energy range—the world.

“The research performed at NSLS-II will probe the fundamental
structure of novel materials and help drive the development of low-cost,
low-carbon energy technologies, spark advances in environmental
science, and spur medical breakthroughs,” Moniz said.

The NSLS-II will produce extremely intense beams of x-ray,
ultraviolet, and infrared light, allowing researchers—including
biologists, chemists, and environmental scientists—to peer into the
nanoscale, probing the properties of materials at resolutions
approaching 10 nanometers. Scientists will use the facility to study
high-temperature superconductors, next-generation silicon chips, and
biological proteins on the smallest scales. The NSLS-II will be 10,000
times as bright as its predecessor, the National Synchrotron Light
Source, which ran for more than 30 years.

Friday, February 6, 2015

James Mullaney's list of 300 night sky wonders,now on-line, comes from his book, Celestial Harvest:300-Plus Showpieces of the
Heavens for TelescopeViewing and Contemplation.

By Glenn A. Walsh

Reporting for SpaceWatchtower

A “Celestial Roster” of 300 of the
finest wonders of the night sky, compiled by long-time astronomy
educator James J. Mullaney, has now been posted on the Internet's World Wide Web. This
list, which Mr. Mullaney describes as his “life's work,” is based
on his 1998 book, Celestial Harvest: 300-Plus Showpieces of the
Heavens for Telescope Viewing and Contemplation.

James Mullaney is an astronomy writer,
lecturer, and consultant who has served as Curator of Exhibits and
Astronomy at Pittsburgh's original Buhl Planetarium and Institute of
Popular Science, Staff Astronomer at the University of Pittsburgh's
Allegheny Observatory, and Director of the Dupont Planetarium located
on the campus of the University of South Carolina, Aiken. He has
written for Astronomy, Sky and Telescope, and Star
and Sky magazines.

Friends of the Zeiss is proud to host,
on the web site of the History of The Buhl Planetarium and Institute
of Popular Science, Pittsburgh, James J. Mullaney's “Celestial
Harvest Showpiece Roster” at this link: